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Monday, July 15, 2019

Retrospective #149: Feral Cat Feeding Frenzy

We have had a small colony
of feral cats for 11 years. When four adolescent siblings appeared on our
terrace one fine day, we fed them. They were truly feral and were too old to be
domesticated. To make a long story short, after a few litters were produced
clandestinely, we eventually caught, spayed or altered them all, and the
population stabilized at six adults. We set out food for them twice a day, though we still
can’t touch or even get close to any of them.

And every year, as winter
approaches in our temperate climate (upstate New York), I’ve observed that our
small feral cat colony knows it’s time to fatten up for the long winter ahead.
Their appetites seem insatiable. Ordinarily cats know not to overeat. If they
are full, they leave food on the plate. But their appetites change when they
sense they will need fat reserves to survive a long winter when they “think”
they will have to depend on “the hunt.”

Gary Taubes describes this
mammalian behavior in “Good Calories – Bad Calories” (pg. 294). It’s an
example, he says, of hormonal control of feeding behavior, just as human growth
hormones account for the appetites of children. On a good diet, children don’t normally
get fat; they get plump briefly and then they grow. They get taller very
quickly. And when cold weather is coming, cats eat voraciously to fatten up for
winter. It’s a hormonal thing.

The temporary fat that cats
put on provides insulation from the cold as well as body fat energy reserves.
Of course, these cats don’t “know” why they have rapacious appetites as the
days get shorter and colder. Their unconscious brains function autonomically
regulating homeostasis on a daily and seasonal basis. Their hormones “tell”
them to eat. It’s a survival behavior. When spring comes, and the fat reserves
are depleted, their eating behavior will return to “normal.” They will need to
be lean again to have the agility to hunt. “Fat cats” don’t get the “early
bird.”

What can we learn from these
observations? Well, we’re mammals too, and it’s only been 500 generations or so
(10,000 years) since we learned to grow food as crops and then harvest and
store them for winter. This was at the beginning of the Neolithic Age. The time
before that is referred to as the Paleolithic Era, hence what is known today as
Paleo dieting. But in today’s world, we live in an environment of abundance in
the food supply. Our modern lifestyle allows us to shop at the local super
market rather than “hunt and gather” or grow our own food.

The market is filled with a cornucopia
of foods all year long, many of them “processed,” which means they have already
been “partially digested”! White flour milled from whole grain is a perfect
example, as are fruit juices and smoothies. Even fruits, which are primarily
sucrose, fructose and glucose – all simple sugars, with a little fiber and
pectin – have all been hybridized to make them even sweeter (and
larger) than they ever were in ancestral times.

The result: When processed
carbs dominate our diet, we eat every day like winter is about to descend at
any minute. The same autonomic control system that tells the feral cat to
prepare for winter, tells us to “overeat.” Not the same mechanism, but the same
effect because, for us, there will be no seasonal change in our food supply.

The alternative to feast and
famine is the way we were designed to eat. Our bodies were designed to be for a
period in a condition of mild ketosis after a meal is digested. It is a natural
state. Food wasn’t always abundant. The cycle then was: feed, digest and absorb,
then fast, repeated maybe once or twice a day, if we were lucky.

The feral cat colony feeding
frenzy is being driven by the onset of winter. Feeding of the human mammalian colony
is now being driven by an over dependence on boxed, bagged, and “predigested”
processed foods that we have come to overly rely on “for our convenience.” It
is also with the blessing and encouragement of our government whose misguided
advice is still being driven by 60 years of bad science, among other
things. The “corrupt bargain” of
government funding, well-meaning but overreaching “big government” “fat cats”
who want to tell us what we should eat, and the influence of Agribusiness and Big
Pharma that profit from it.

As individuals in society we need to learn to think
for ourselves and recognize what is really
in our best interest.

About Me

I was diagnosed a Type 2 diabetic in 1986. I started a Very Low Carb diet (Atkins Induction) in 2002 to lose weight. I didn’t realize at the time that it would put my diabetes in clinical remission, or that I would be able to give up almost all of my oral diabetes meds. I also didn’t understand that, as I lost weight and continued to eat Very Low Carb, my blood lipids would dramatically improve (doubling my HDL and cutting my triglycerides by 2/3rds) and that my blood pressure would drop from 130/90 to 110/70 on the same meds.
Over the years I changed from Atkins to the Bernstein Diet (designed for diabetics) and, altogether lost 170 pounds. I later regained some and then lost some. As long as I eat Very Low Carb, I am not hungry and I have lots of energy. And I no longer have any of the indications of Metabolic Syndrome.
My goal, as long as I have excess body fat, is to remain continuously in a ketogenic state, both for blood glucose regulation and continued weight loss. I expect that this regimen will continue to provide the benefits of reduced systemic inflammation, improved blood lipids and lower blood pressure as well.